A successful story of a young woman’s journey through grief.
In this YA coming-of-age novel, a teenage girl who’s lost her best friend must learn how to open her heart again.
With sharp prose and unsentimental language, Alexander (Love and Other Unknown Variables, 2014) invites readers into the world of high schooler Becca Hanson, a quiet loner whose closest friend, Charlotte, died six months before. Becca’s world has grown dark with grief, and she doesn’t know how to let the light back in—even when her classmates and family members try to get through her tough emotional armor. But slowly, she’s forced to lower her shields when she undertakes a project in her literature course with an interested, curious classmate, Max, that draws her into more vulnerable territory. Soon, in a tender moment, she learns that she’s able to open up and talk about her late, beloved friend when she’s in a darkened theater. That same theater soon becomes a safe haven for her in which to form a romantic relationship with Max and to start her healing process. Although the novel touches on heavy themes of death, cancer, and grief, it does so with levity: Becca is quick-witted and narrates the story with a dry, sarcastic inner monologue and rich humor. Ultimately, she finds the stage to be a place where she can draw from her deepest emotions and truest self. The story builds toward a final theatrical performance but also offers a story of how Becca comes of age and reaches a state of grace. This sequel follows characters from Alexander’s previous novel, but it stands on its own as an independent story for readers not yet familiar with the author’s punchy YA fiction. Readers will fall in love with Becca, Max, Darby, and other characters as their soft, awkward moments of adolescence resonate throughout the prose.
A successful story of a young woman’s journey through grief.Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-63375-323-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet, slow-paced novel about a teen learning to love her body.
Greer Walsh wishes she were one person...unfortunately, with her large breasts, she feels like she’s actually three.
High school sophomore and math whiz Greer is self-conscious about her body. Maude and Mavis, as she’s named her large breasts, are causing problems for her. When Greer meets new kid Jackson Oates, she wishes even more that she had a body that she didn’t feel a need to hide underneath XXL T-shirts. While trying to impress Jackson, who has moved to the Chicago suburbs from Cleveland, Greer decides to try out for her school’s volleyball team. When she makes JV, Greer is forced to come to terms with how her body looks and feels in a uniform and in motion as well as with being physically close with her teammates. The story is told in the first person from Greer’s point of view. Inconsistent storytelling as well as Greer’s (somewhat distracting) personified inner butterfly make this realistic novel a slow but overall enjoyable read. The story contains elements of light romance as well as strong female friendships. Greer is white with a Christian mom and Jewish dad; Jackson seems to be white by default, and there is diversity among the secondary characters.
A sweet, slow-paced novel about a teen learning to love her body. (Fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: June 23, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-1524-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Intriguing but convoluted and underdeveloped.
When the veil between life and death is torn, threatening everything and everyone she loves, Célie is determined to take “till death do us part” as a challenge, her role as Bride of Death notwithstanding, in this sequel to The Scarlet Veil (2023).
Célie’s life has very abruptly gone to hell in a handbasket. She’s been turned into a vampire and abandoned by the mysterious and infuriatingly alluring man who turned her. Fearful of hurting her friends, she can’t eat or sleep, and she loathes herself and what she’s become. Célie is also being haunted by her late sister, Filippa. The dead are walking, something is going wrong with magic, and Death himself has manifested in corporeal form to claim his due. Only Célie can mend what’s been broken—but at what cost? This sequel picks up without much time spent reorienting readers to plot points or character dynamics. As in the first book, the drama spools on for too long, only properly picking up momentum about two-thirds of the way through the book. What starts as a slow-burn romance soon becomes quite the opposite, and although the stakes are generally higher than before and there are some very touching moments, the narrative never quite comes together in a satisfying way, and the worldbuilding and characters feel shallow and lack sufficient context. Most characters are light-skinned.
Intriguing but convoluted and underdeveloped. (Paranormal. 16-18)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780063258808
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
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